"With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world's most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth.

FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

Practical ways to achieve weight control by developing new habits, new techniques, and a new outlook involving food intake that recognises the difficulties of counting calories or calculating carbohydrate consumption, that shows how adopting simple lifestyle changes can help control weight and improve health, and that accounts for the imperatives of personal taste and the inevitable changes wrought by ageing, all the while advocating a relaxed, more casual approach to dieting to achieve the best results for the most people over the longest period of time.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing, WOMM as it is commonly known, is the least expensive form of advertising and often the most effective. People believe what their friends, neighbors, and online contacts say about you, your products, and services. And they remember it for a long, long time. Word-of-mouth promotion is highly valued. There is no more powerful form of marketing than an endorsement from one of your current customers. A satisfied customer's recommendation has much greater value than traditional advertising because it is coming from someone who is familiar with the quality of your work. The best part is that initiating this form of advertising costs little or no money. For WOMM to increase your business, you need an active plan in place and do what is necessary to create buzz. If your business is on the Web, there are myriads of possibilities for starting a highly successful viral marketing campaign using the Internet, software, blogs, online activists, press releases, discussion forums and boards, affiliate marketing, and product sampling. Technology has dramatically changed traditional marketing programs. This all sounds great, but what is the catch? There really is none, except you must know what you are doing! This groundbreaking and exhaustively researched new book will provide everything you need to know to get you started creating the buzz free publicity about your product or service whether online or off. In this easy to read and comprehensive new book you will learn what WOMM is, how to get people talking about your product or service, how to get your customers to be your sales force, how to get WOMM to spread quickly, how to automate WOMM, how to create a blog, create awareness, and how to amplify it. The entire process is covered here: marketing, dealing with negative customer experience, writing online press releases, creating a customer reference program, bringing together a fan club/loyalist community, naming VIPs, using flogs (photos), and spurring evangelism among influential people. Included are tactics that pertain especially to non-profits, including reputation management. In addition, we have gone the extra mile and spent an unprecedented amount of time researching, interviewing, e-mailing, and communicating with hundreds of today's most successful WOMM marketers. Aside from learning the basics you will be privy to their secrets and proven successful ideas. Instruction is great, but advice from experts is even better, and the experts chronicled in this book are earning millions. If you are interested in learning essentially everything there is to know about WOMM in addition to hundreds of hints, tricks, and secrets on how to put WOMM marketing techniques in place and start earning enormous profits, then this book is for you. Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company presidentâe(tm)s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

Talk Triggers is the definitive, practical guide on how to use bold operational differentiators to create customer conversations, written by best-selling authors and marketing experts Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin. Word of mouth is directly responsible for 19% of all purchases, and influences as much as 90%. Every human on earth relies on word of mouth to make buying decisions. Yet even today, fewer than 1% of companies have an actual strategy for generating these crucial customer conversations. Talk Triggers provides that strategy in a compelling, relevant, timely book that can be put into practice immediately, by any business. The key to activating customer chatter is the realization that same is lame. Nobody says "let me tell you about this perfectly adequate experience I had last night." The strategic, operational differentiator is what gives customers something to tell a story about. Companies (including the 30+ profiled in Talk Triggers) must dare to be different and exceed expectations in one or more palpable ways. That's when word of mouth becomes involuntary: the customers of these businesses simply MUST tell someone else. Talk Triggers contains: Proprietary research into why and how customers talk More than 30 detailed case studies of extraordinary results from Doubletree Hotels by Hilton and their warm cookie upon arrival, The Cheesecake Factory and their giant menu, Five Guys Burgers and their extra fries in the bag, Penn & Teller and their nightly meet and greet sessions, and a host of delightful small businesses The 4-5-6 learning system (the 4 requirements for a differentiator to be a talk trigger; the 5 types of talk triggers; and the 6-step process for creating talk triggers) Surprises in the text that are (of course) word of mouth propellants Consumers are wired to discuss what is different, and ignore what is average. Talk Triggers not only dares the reader to differentiate, it includes the precise formula for doing it. Combining compelling stories, inspirational examples, and practical how-to, Talk Triggers is the first indispensable book about word of mouth. It's a book that will create conversation about the power of conversation.

Professional service firms differ from other business enterprises in two distinct ways: first they provide highly customised services thus cannot apply many of the management principles developed for product-based industries. Second, professional services are highly personalised, involving the skills of individuals. Such firms must therefore compete not only for clients but also for talented professionals. Drawing on more than ten years of research and consulting to these unique and creative companies, David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies, human resources policies to profit improvement, strategic planning to effective leadership. While these issues can be complex, Maister simplifies them by recognising that 'every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people and financial success for its owners.'

The revolutionary guide that challenged businesses around the world to stop selling to their buyers and start answering their questions to get results; revised and updated to address new technology, trends, the continuous evolution of the digital consumer, and much more In today’s digital age, the traditional sales funnel—marketing at the top, sales in the middle, customer service at the bottom—is no longer effective. To be successful, businesses must obsess over the questions, concerns, and problems their buyers have, and address them as honestly and as thoroughly as possible. Every day, buyers turn to search engines to ask billions of questions. Having the answers they need can attract thousands of potential buyers to your company—but only if your content strategy puts your answers at the top of those search results. It’s a simple and powerful equation that produces growth and success: They Ask, You Answer. Using these principles, author Marcus Sheridan led his struggling pool company from the bleak depths of the housing crash of 2008 to become one of the largest pool installers in the United States. Discover how his proven strategy can work for your business and master the principles of inbound and content marketing that have empowered thousands of companies to achieve exceptional growth. They Ask, You Answer is a straightforward guide filled with practical tactics and insights for transforming your marketing strategy. This new edition has been fully revised and updated to reflect the evolution of content marketing and the increasing demands of today’s internet-savvy buyers. New chapters explore the impact of technology, conversational marketing, the essential elements every business website should possess, the rise of video, and new stories from companies that have achieved remarkable results with They Ask, You Answer. Upon reading this book, you will know: How to build trust with buyers through content and video. How to turn your web presence into a magnet for qualified buyers. What works and what doesn’t through new case studies, featuring real-world results from companies that have embraced these principles. Why you need to think of your business as a media company, instead of relying on more traditional (and ineffective) ways of advertising and marketing. How to achieve buy-in at your company and truly embrace a culture of content and video. How to transform your current customer base into loyal brand advocates for your company. They Ask, You Answer is a must-have resource for companies that want a fresh approach to marketing and sales that is proven to generate more traffic, leads, and sales.

In the widely well-received first edition of The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, author George Silverman provided readers step-by-step guidance with his innovative Decision Matrix for constructing a word-of-mouth marketing campaign that exponentially increases revenue. Now, extensively revised to reflect the profound changes in the marketplace--from new attitudes and communication methods, to new ways of relating to increasingly wary web and social media users--the second edition of this groundbreaking book shows readers how they can move beyond traditional approaches to identify potential buyers and compose the kind of message that inspires customers to spread the word about products and services. Featuring enlightening case studies and examples, The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing simplifies the process of choosing your delivery method, harnessing the power of influencers, and measuring results. Whether you’re wondering how to navigate the latest digital media or interested in learning what Malcolm Gladwell got wrong, this helpful tool is still the ultimate word on word of mouth.

Word of Mouth Marketing: The Comic Book By Andy Sernovitz with Cale Johnson. Illustrated by Shane Clester. Quickly learn to get people talking about you in this fast, fun, comic edition of the New York Times bestseller Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. The original is the #1 word of mouth marketing book since 2004, translated into 14 languages. This exciting new graphic novel edition makes these fantastically useful ideas even easier to read, implement, and share. The comic edition is a great way to teach word of mouth marketing to teams that need it most but don't have the time to sit down with the complete book. For fans of the full book, the comic makes a great back-pocket guide for your day-to-day marketing. With straightforward advice and humor, Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world's most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth. Learn the five essential steps that make word of mouth work and everything you need to get started. Understand how easy it is to work with social media, viral marketing, evangelists, and buzz. Start using simple techniques that start conversations: Reasons People Talk About You 4 Rules of Word of Mouth Marketing 5 Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing 6 Big Ideas: Deep Stuff That Changes Marketing Forever Learn to use word of mouth marketing to make your company more profitable, how to spend less on marketing, and how to make your customers happier.